[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Bill Walker
West Coast Director
Environmental Working Group

A year after he mocked environmentalists as "Prohibitionists at a frat party," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has delivered another big Earth Day speech – this time at Yale – with the same theme: The environmental movement is a failure because it tries to make people feel guilty about what we've done to the planet, rather than promising an exciting and fun-filled green future. He says the movement needs to move from "hand wringing and whining to [an image] that is hip, . . . cutting edge, forceful and self confident and even sexy."

Much like an action movie franchise on its third installment, most of the Yale speech is recycled from last year's address at Georgetown. But Schwarzenegger – not content simply to ignore those who point out that his jet-set, industry-friendly walk doesn't always match his save-the-planet talk – picked an old and very tired wedge issue to try to make his critics seem like nerds in the punchbowl: He says environmentalists' zeal for protecting endangered species is blocking progress in the war on global warming:

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Traci Sheehan
Executive Director
Planning and Conservation League

Last Thursday at the State Capitol, the Planning and Conservation League joined with Assemblymember Lois Wolk, Environment California, the Environmental Working Group, and the Sierra Fund, to call upon the U.S. Congress to make significant environmental reforms to the outdated 1872 Mining Act.

Specifically, the group urged Congress to ensure that the reforms of the 136 year old law include a key provision requiring prospectors to pay a royalty for mining activities on public lands. This would provide desperately needed money to clean up the pollution caused by mining.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Bill Walker
West Coast Director
Environmental Working Group

Sacramento's not such a bad place: The summer heat and lousy air quality are balanced by the outdoor recreational opportunities and an unpretentious, small-town feel. But if you're a international movie star used to the bright lights of Hollywood and you somehow get yourself elected governor of California, surely you can't be expected to actually live there.

The first governor to fit that description, Ronald Reagan, had nothing against Sacramento per se, but Nancy found the historic governor's mansion near the Capitol a dump. The state built a new residence in the suburbs that became a white elephant after Jerry Brown decided he preferred a mattress on the floor of a studio apartment. Today we have Arnold Schwarzenegger, who at first toyed with the idea of buying a home and moving his family to Sacramento, then took up residence in a hotel penthouse across the street from his office. But he missed his kids in Brentwood, and he already had a private jet at his disposal, so of late he's been flying home at night and back in the morning. It's a three-hour round trip, not that extreme a commute in California today.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Bill Walker
West Coast Director
Environmental Working Group

It’s no secret California Attorney General Jerry Brown wants to return to the governor’s office he held from 1975 to 1983. But for a guy whose family name is synonymous with “Democrat” and is viewed nationally as a beyond-liberal lefty (far from it), it’s interesting that on the environment he’s staking out the same turf as Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Arnold’s signature issue, of course, is global warming, but the man once known as Gov. Moonbeam is working hard to steal the spotlight. In the space of a month, Brown filed suit against the Bush Administration for its delay in deciding whether California can set its own standards for greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles; petitioned the EPA to regulate GHG emissions from airplanes; and struck a deal to reduce GHG emissions from ships, trucks and trains at the Port of Los Angeles.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

California and U.S. Taxpayers Foot Electricity Bills for Central Valley Agribusinesses

By Bill Walker
West Coast Director
Environmental Working Group

Some of America's richest and largest farms are paying pennies for the vast amounts of electricity needed to deliver irrigation water to California's arid Central Valley.

In 2002 and 2003, agribusinesses in the Central Valley Project (CVP) paid only about one cent per kilowatt-hour for electricity to transport irrigation water, according to a 15-month investigation by Environmental Working Group (EWG). Compared to Pacific Gas & Electric's agricultural rate, that's an annual subsidy of more than $100 million from the rest of us.

EWG's report is available at www.ewg.org. It shows both the price paid by each CVP irrigation district in the years studied and the amount of energy the district used.

Every year the CVP, the nation's largest federally subsidized irrigation system, moves more than 2 trillion gallons of water through 1,500 miles of canals. The electricity needed to move water around the CVP would power every home in Chico for 18 months. But just as CVP contractors pay heavily subsidized rates for their water, they pay next to nothing for the power that delivers it.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Bill Walker
West Coast Director
Environmental Working Group

Our governor, who was oiling his quads for the camera when Lois Gibbs was fighting a chemical catastrophe at Love Canal, is suddenly being hailed as an environmental hero.

He's the GOP’s Al Gore. He’s simultaneously on the covers of special green issues of Newsweek and Outside, with fawning articles and Q&As recounting how he gets policy tips from his cousin-in-law Bobby Kennedy Jr. and has one Hummer that runs on hydrogen, another on biodiesel. He’s a jet-setting green diplomat, signing global warming pacts with Canada and Britain. He’s the keynote speaker at prestigious international climate change conferences.

Fine. To a point.